Sir William Macpherson, the judge who conducted the inquiry into the bungled Stephen Lawrence murder investigation, said yesterday it was time for the police and his rightwing critics to stop "whining and complaining" about the findings of his report and forge ahead to change society.

In an interview with the Guardian to mark next week's anniversary of the inquiry's publication, Sir William, 74, said talk of a grieving process - often used by the former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Paul Condon to explain a lack of morale in the force - had to stop.

"The Lawrences grieve and they will never stop grieving because they lost their son. A police force doesn't grieve. The police have been castigated. They have taken a blow, they've got to get over it. They've got to get on with it." Although he praised the Met and the home office for accepting the report's 70 recommendations, he said he had been disappointed and surprised by the personal attacks on him launched by the rightwing media, and seemed frustrated he had been blamed for the surge in street crime which coincided with a drop in the number of stop-and-searches last year.

"We pointed out the discriminatory nature of stop-and-search. It's up to the police to look at it and get it right. The report didn't cause the problem. It highlighted the problem. Were we to ignore the facts and figures?"

He said he had received hate mail at his castle home in Perthshire following the publication of the report last February, but the "revolting" letters and the "beastly" carping from some commentators had not affected him.

"I am not going to whinge. I stand by every word of the report.

"I stand by every recommendation. They were all based on the evidence that was presented to the inquiry."

Its chairman Glen Smyth said Sir William should recognise that many officers had suffered appallingly since Stephen Lawrence's murder. "He should get in touch with me and I'll introduce him to some of the officers who had nervous breakdowns. These men have been through a lot. Many, many positive things have come out of the Macpherson inquiry but it was not a perfect report and what he says is not always right. I wish he would accept that."

Mr Smyth said the former high court judge was "an upper class person from a privileged background who had never been a police officer and who had no idea what it was like to conduct a murder inquiry."

He added: "He only sees things from one side. His intransigence diminished the good that can be done. There have been so many losers and so few winners out of all of this."

Sir William said he was confident that there was a strong will among politicians and the police to push ahead with his reforms and was extremely optimistic about the future.

He admitted the inquiry had "opened his eyes" in the way that black and Asian people were treated in society. He said he had never been racist himself, overtly or unwittingly.